Friday, 31 December 2010

The north pole is one of only two places on earth where the world stops turning. Can you feel the stillness?

My name is Margaret Sharrow, I'm an artist, and I'm so excited about my plans to share standing atop the world in a moment of silence. I'd invite others on the expedition to stand round the pole, dressed in red and bearing portraits of people who have brought peace and silence to the world. One by one they will stand on the pole, feeling inner and outer stillness as the world turns around them. They will also pass round the circle a plate of Italian crystal containing gold filaments, a work of art currently circling the world from one artist to another via FRAGILE - global performance chain journey.

Vote for me and I'll take dramatic photos of that event and everything else on the voyage, using digital and antique cameras. You'll see videos and share my stories and interviews on the blog. And I'll give you other ways to participate: I'll need nominations of people who've nurtured silence, to have their portraits carried to the pole. I'll organise silent circles round the world to experience stillness at the very moment the expedition reaches the pole. There will be a photo-book, and an exhibition that will tour the globe.

I've been in cold places all my life: born in Buffalo, New York (butt of American snow jokes) I drifted to Canada then Britain, traveling extensively in the remote north Atlantic. Best moment? A cherry red Air Greenland helicopter taking off from Qaqortoq, roaring rotors pulsing in my sternum, three cameras juggled on my lap, my tear-filling eyes stretched wide, not missing anything. The chopper rose, perspectives shifted, the world turned inside out. The harbour and jewel-coloured rows of Danish houses lining the bowl of hills. Sea glowing blue-green spotted with brilliant white icebergs running out of the fjords like a stately crowd dispersing. Jagged edges of fairy-pointed mountains against the horizon, pressing close as children at a sweet shop window. Sailing free in the skies until the stewardess, having handed round mints, sat opposite me. Oblivious to her daily tour of paradise, she happily leafed through a magazine.

I mentioned yesterday about the grant that allowed me to travel to Greenland, generously provided by the University of Wales, on condition that I was engaged in some sort of creative project (drama, cinema, creative writing, or in this case, fine art) with a further outcome to enhance my educational experience. I was at the time pursuing a BA at the Aberystwyth University School of Art, having hurried straight into the second year and begun experimenting with alternative photographic processes. This means that although I started out making some digital work, my main focus was in the darkroom, first doing traditional prints, and gradually moving into different techniques and chemical processes until it became photography, Jim, but not as we know it. By the end of the year I was cheerfully pouring bleach over multiple-exposure prints then wailing when I discovered that Sigmar Polke had already done exactly the same thing in 1971. To cap it all I’d been awarded a massive travel scholarship, which made for an interesting summer. After I finished marking a million media studies A level papers I had flown straight into preparations: daily study of Danish, in hopes of being able to speak Greenland’s colonial language, if not Greenlandic itself, which is difficult to find recordings for the essential comic attempts at mimicry. Now Danish can be difficult for the English speaker because of its range of guttural sounds produced at the back of the palette. Though Danish is reasonably similar to English in terms of word order, linguistic roots, etc., and I’d spent hours making vocabulary flashcards in my favourite cafe, I found that when confronted with actual Greenlanders speaking their colonial tongue I had my usual reaction - I froze (metaphorically, as it was still summer) and forgot everything I’d ever learned. There was one exception - I was able to amuse people by reciting the never-to-be-forgotten tongue twister taught to me years ago in Toronto by a Danish-Canadian friend. It employed a string of the guttural sounds, and provided guaranteed hilarity, by dint of my pronunciation: rød grød med flød på - which is red pudding with cream, as I remember.

Somehow I have diverged onto Danish tongue twisters and puddings, which throws up the whole question of Greenland’s relationship to Denmark. But more political thinking would leave us both up in the air, ignoring the spectacular views unfolding out the window of the descending plane. I can assure you unreservedly that at the time I took the photograph shown here, I was as fully present as I have ever been in my life, allowing for the fact that a certain detachment is inevitable when taking photographs at a furious rate. By the time we landed I was convinced that if I never took another picture over the next three weeks, I would still have enough material for an exhibition. The land was chiseled out of the green-blue sea, its elaphantine wrinkles washed with rusty red. And here I must say something about the colours I experienced, and have passed on to you. As with all my digital photos from this trip, I have made no alterations to saturation, contrast, density, etc., avoiding the current fashion in advertising and on Flickr for playing with these mechanics in Photoshop, producing supersaturated landscapes that anyone who has been to the place will recognise as overhyped, and setting up anyone who has not been for disappointment. Suffice it to say that with my photographs, as far as colour goes, what you see is what you get. Unless of course I have rendered the whole scene blue, by printing it as a cyanotype...

Air Greenland wing, flying over the west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I decided early on that the Air Greenland fleet was the handsomest fleet of airplanes I'd ever seen. They were all candy apple red, with a ski for a wheel (no, not that, I'm thinking of the Beach Boys) and just as lusciously shiny as a childhood treat, sprinkled with a logo of white dots forming a snowflake. In a rebranding that was the stamp of the dashing new CEO, the airline bent over backwards to give its passengers a first-class experience, which helped in a great measure to offset the first-class prices. In an ideal world I would have flown as far north as it was possible to go, Qaanaaq, but my entire grant wouldn't have covered the airfare. As it was, for the cost of the flight from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, and from Narsarsuaq back to Copenhagen was more than a round the world ticket. But they were very generous with the food (quality, quantity, cutlery), the wine, the film (a Swedish drama that climaxed on the massive bridge spanning the Baltic from Malmö to Copenhagen), the courtesy. And overgenerous with the views on descent. Having come through rather unnerving turbulence over the icecap, the parting of the clouds alone would have resulted in joy. However, the ever-changing views of the rocky coast resulted in a sort of photographic ecstasy, of which more tomorrow.

My original proposal was limited to 400 words, so I think I'll write a little more to explain just why I am so drawn to northern places, and inevitably, the North Pole. But bear with me, midnight of New Year's Eve approaches... I'll have the full story tomorrow for the new year!

The north pole is one of only two places on earth where the world stops turning. Can you feel the stillness?

My name is Margaret Sharrow, I'm an artist, and I'm so excited about my plans to share standing atop the world in a moment of silence. I'd invite others on the expedition to stand round the pole, dressed in red and bearing portraits of people who have brought peace and silence to the world. One by one they will stand on the pole, feeling inner and outer stillness as the world turns around them. They will also pass round the circle a plate of Italian crystal containing gold filaments, a work of art currently circling the world from one artist to another via FRAGILE - global performance chain journey.

Vote for me and I'll take dramatic photos of that event and everything else on the voyage, using digital and antique cameras. You'll see videos and share my stories and interviews on the blog. And I'll give you other ways to participate: I'll need nominations of people who've nurtured silence, to have their portraits carried to the pole. I'll organise silent circles round the world to experience stillness at the very moment the expedition reaches the pole. There will be a photo-book, and an exhibition that will tour the globe.

I've been in cold places all my life: born in Buffalo, New York (butt of American snow jokes) I drifted to Canada then Britain, traveling extensively in the remote north Atlantic. Best moment? A cherry red Air Greenland helicopter taking off from Qaqortoq, roaring rotors pulsing in my sternum, three cameras juggled on my lap, my tear-filling eyes stretched wide, not missing anything. The chopper rose, perspectives shifted, the world turned inside out. The harbour and jewel-coloured rows of Danish houses lining the bowl of hills. Sea glowing blue-green spotted with brilliant white icebergs running out of the fjords like a stately crowd dispersing. Jagged edges of fairy-pointed mountains against the horizon, pressing close as children at a sweet shop window. Sailing free in the skies until the stewardess, having handed round mints, sat opposite me. Oblivious to her daily tour of paradise, she happily leafed through a magazine.

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Artist Profile

Born Buffalo, New York, USA. Lives & works West Wales, UK. Performed at FACT Liverpool & Manchester’s greenroom. Contributing to ‘FRAGILE: global chain performance event’ (2011). Shown at St Dogmaels Gallery (Pembrokeshire), ‘Imaging the Bible’ at Aberystwyth School of Art. Received University of Wales travel scholarship to Greenland.